


two for the show

by thelinkbetweenourhearts



Series: soulmate au [1]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: 5+1, F/M, Soulmate AU, Super AU, This is my first time doing this, basically five times people thought long and hard about max and nathan, i am so sorry if that title has been used it's so common but it fits, i don't know how to tag, max came back earlier to arcadia bay in this, outsider pov, that soulmate au where the first words your soulmate says to you are marked on your skin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 04:28:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5077810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelinkbetweenourhearts/pseuds/thelinkbetweenourhearts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max Caulfield bumps into Nathan Prescott on their first day of school, and by apologizing, she might just save his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	two for the show

1

It's very funny, Hayden thinks:

Nathan's soulmate  _would_ be some hipster chick with a Polaroid who bumps into him and makes him drop all his stuff.

Any other person Nathan would ream, but this girl utters the words etched onto his inner thigh (Nathan had shown him, once, when they were both high as kites and talking shit), and he smiles at her instead.

She is not Nathan's usual type. Small-- _fun sized,_ his mother would say, smiling prettily--and tiny, like a bird. Her hair is mousy brown, she has freckles for days, and her front teeth are just a shade too big. Cute though. Just cute.

Despite her looks, she is no pushover. She doesn't enjoy confrontation, but she doesn't shy away from it. An entire two months of watching a jealous Victoria get shut down by her has taught Hayden that much.

And she isn't going to change to fit Nathan or the Vortex Club. Nathan complains about her smilingly accepting his gifts of clothes and then tucking them away in the back of her closet. She gives Nathan shit when he when he targets her dorky group of friends, and especially when he doesn't take care of himself. Hayden likes her. She's got guts.

She's good for Nathan. He's never been the most stable, what with his family's fucked up situation, but he's a good friend. After Rachel went missing he had been falling apart. Max makes him smile. She makes him laugh. She makes him angry, too. Sometimes they have shouting matches so loud it draws the attention of teachers.

They're falling in love, probably. Sometimes you can't tell if soulmates are platonic or not, but Hayden doesn't think they will be. 

Some time in October, they argue heartedly over the Vortex Club party, the one where Kate Marsh got trashed. They don't speak for days. After they make up, Hayden glimpses them sharing a kiss, secret and quick, in the school parking lot. They're definitely not platonic.

 

2

"Max! It's so good to hear from you, sweetie."

"Mom?"

"Yeah? What's wrong? You sound sad."

"...I found my soulmate, mom."

Vanessa shoots up her seat. Her husband looks at her quizzically. She holds up her finger.

"Max, I'm going to put you on speaker phone so your dad can hear. Is that ok?" She asks.

"Yeah."

She presses the speaker button. Ryan takes a seat in the chair opposite to hers. He lays his work out in the living room table. Her lips quirk at the familiar sight of his scratchy handwriting.

"Ok, you're on speaker."

"Hey honey!" Ryan says.

"Hi, daddy. I found my soulmate. Promise you won't beat him up?"

Max unloads on them. She tells them how her soulmate is the Prescotts' boy. That she's know him since the first day. How her first words to him were, "Oh my God, great job, me, I'm so clumsy. Here, let me help you." and how much she loves that his words were "you already have."

Those three words have been bothering Max since she was a child. She used to ask Vanessa what she could possibly do, if she would be a horrible soulmate, if she could find them by being anything but herself. Vanessa bursts into relieved tears. She secretly hates that she couldn't ease that anxiety for her baby, but she gueses she'll always feel that way. She's a mom.

Max starts crying too.

"He's--he's had a rough life, mom. He's not okay. But he's trying so hard to get better. He's so sweet to me. I thought I'd hate him because he's super rich and most of his friends are jerks." 

They all laugh. Ryan massages Vanessa's neck with both hands.

"He's not perfect, but I think this could be good."

She laughs, thick and wet. There's a faint rustling sound. A distant, masculine voice says,  _"Max, are you ok? Who is that?"_

Max's reply is muffled.

"Oh, uh. Just my parents, actually. We were talking about you. Come here. Please."

To the phone, she says, "I just wanted to let you guys know. I should have called sooner. I love you. I'll talk to you later."

Before she hangs up, Max's soulmate says,  _"Here, you're shaking. Just take the fucking jacket—"_

Ryan folds Vanessa into his arms.

"She's growing up." He says, and she just nods before a fresh wave of tears hits her.

 

3

Max will never like him back. That becomes obvious pretty fast. What Warren doesn't understand is her affection for Nathan Prescott, even with their matching marks. He was born without a mark, and his scientific mind has never been able to fully accept the sheer irrationality of soulmates. He relishes in the studies that come close to debunking them. He enjoys reading articles written by people who found love without the aid of the mark on their skin.

At first he thought he had a chance. After all, Max had Nathan and his goons lay off of Warren and the group. They never did so completely--Victoria's stint filming Kate is a testament to that—and they were still awful to others, but the difference has been noticeable. In the early days, Max complained about Nathan more often than not. She said he was spoiled and entitled and was in desperate need of help. It soon became clear that Nathan was all she wanted to talk about, negatively or positively. As the first month of school rolled by, it became positively skewed.

Sometime in the second month of school, Nathan starts to seek Max out in the halls, stopping by to sneer at Warren over her head. Sometimes he brings gifts (is that the only way rich people know how to show affection?), sometimes he just checks in. Sometimes he doesn't say anything and just buries his face into her neck. Max strokes his hair without missing a beat each time, though the first time it happened she had given Warren a wide eyed look.

Warren knows he's lost when Nathan sidles up to then during the break period, presses a quick kiss onto her cheek and says, "Let me take you out tonight."

She flushes prettily and nods. Nathan cuts Warren a sharp look of warning as he stalks away from them.

"I was wrong about him, Warren." Max confides. Her eyes are soft on Nathan's retreating back. 

 _Yes you are_ , he wants to say.

'I'm happy for you." He says.

 

4

 _That little shit better get here soon,_ Frank thinks, taking a drag from his cigarette. He's impatient, crochety from missing Rachel. Prescott may be an entitled brat, but he pays well, and he usually isn't late.

Pompidou looks up at Frank. His wet eyes are as understanding as always.

"Good boy," Frank grunts, giving the dog a scratch behind the ear. He throws his smoke onto the pier and snuffs it out with his foot. 

"We'll give Rott five minutes. How about that?"

They wait for Prescott. It's getting late; the sun spreads a wavering glow over the ocean, paints the sky red, dark blue, purple. Just as it gets truly dark and he's about to return to the RV and lock the door behind him, the familiar sound of Prescott's smooth engine hits his ears. Frank looks over his shoulder and sure enough, that sleek red SUV pulls up. Prescott keeps the engine on. The light comes on as he opens the door, and briefly casts an eerie fluorescent glow on a girl's sleeping face.

She stirs, and Nathan leans back into the truck to soothe her. He looks uncharacteristically gentle as he does so. He also looks scared out of his wits.

The first thing Frank says when he walks up is "You better not be looking to drug that girl. I don't deal with shit like that."

Nathan's face is flinty with offense. The furrow between his brow is all too familiar.

"Shut the fuck up! I would never do something like--look do you want my service or not?"

"Who's this chick? I hope you know how sketchy this looks "

"If you have to know,  _this chick_ is my soulmate. I took her out and realized I'm falling hard. And I? I am fucked up. I've done some shit. This is the one good thing that's happened to me in years and ill probably crew it up. So can you give me my weed, please?"

And Frank has nothing to say to that. He has the stupid little thought that it's kinda fucked up for Nathan Prescott to be buying weed while his soulmate's asleep in his SUV, but he feels dirty when he remembers he's done worse with his own soulmate. Then he remembers that she is gone. He keeps his mouth shut and gives Nathan his weed.

Nathan thanks him brosquely, overpays, and leaves.

 

5

"Hey, Samuel da Vinci. How are you?"

It's young Max, come to talk to him again. She's special, this Max. Destined for great things. Arcadia Bay likes her. The squirrels like her. Samuel likes her.

"Hello Max."

She slides onto the bench, his usual morning perch, and smiles up at him.

"Do you have a soulmate, Samuel?"

Arcadia Bay is his soulmate.

"No. Born without."

"I'm jealous." Max chuckles, hugging herself probably not entirely against the chill air.

"You don't mean that." Samuel says, and Max smiles quietly in confirmation.

Whenever she is troubled, Max rises early. She sits with Samuel and voices her worry. He appreciates being able to help her in any way, but he will probably never tell her.

"Nathan's loosing himself." Max says in a rush.

Soulmates are an odd thing. They fall in love quick and hard. They become a unit. Max is only half a person feeling the pain of her other half through the bond they share. Samuel wants to tell het that, but he doesn't think she'll understand.

"Sometimes I don't see him for days at a time and he comes back so _angry_ and I don't know how to help him. His medication makes him feel horrible. He's been awful to everyone. I don't know how to help him."

Her voice cracks. Samuel pats her shoulder. "Don't cry Max."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry."

"What should I do?"

"You're already doing all you can. But I think it would make you both feel better if you went to him."

Max nods. She calms herself and then makes for the main building just as the early rising students trickle out of the dorms. Samuel knows she'll help that Prescott boy. No one else has. People have tried, but none of them were his soulmate.

 

+1

Nathan pulls a gun out, and a ghost materializes from behind the stalls.

"Nathan,  _please_ don't do this."

He is sliding the safety back on in an instant, easy like second nature, like he's done it a thousand times before. His expression goes from enraged to ashen so fast it makes Chloe laugh in hysteria.

 _"Max?"_ Chloe says.

Max's head jerks towards her face, and recognition sets in like a fire in her eyes and she's shaking her head over and over.

"What did you do? What did you do, Nathan?"

Nathan folds himself away from her like he's been burned. Max gets in his face, and she moves when he moves so she can maintain eye contact.

"Max, just, just go back to your dorm and I'll be there soon." He says, blinking rapidly.

"Give me the gun, Nathan."

She closes her hands over his. He gives her the gun. She holds it so tight her knuckles are white.

"Did you know that you shot--almost shot my best friend? It's Chloe, Nathan. My Chloe." She starts to shake.

Nathan breaks. He covers his face. Max folds him into her arms. They cling to each other like they're each other's lifeline.

It clicks.

"Oh," Chloe says. She runs.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos is great, comments are better
> 
> i was pissed about nathan's fate and wanted to write something slightly positive, maybe i'll write more later.


End file.
